Cormac O'Sullivan's Irish Language Viseme Set
Overview
For the creation of GiobGeab, extensive research was conducted to determine what visemes (visual phonemes) exist in Irish speech. As the main use case for GiobGeab is in Meall an Óige (a kids language learning app) it was deemed incredibly important to assure an accurate, complete viseme set to aid learning correct production of speech. Going for a simplified/english viseme set would allow easier development of characters but could harm the language learning benefits of a lip-syncing character.
Cormac O'Sullivan's Irish Language Viseme Set was created as part of his Bachelor's Thesis at Trinity College Dublin. It created a set of 21 Visemes that his testing tentively shows (larger tests with more accurate characters are necessary to confirm) provide a better represention of Irish then a simplified English language aligned viseme set.
This DOC provides a copy of the viseme set. More information can be found about this viseme set and the research carried out to create it by reading the original paper, available here
Viseme Set
| Index | Viseme | Gloss | Phonemes | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | PBM_S | Lips fully closed, unrounded/lax. | pʲ, bʲ, m̥ʲ, mʲ | |
| 2 | PBM_B | Lips fully closed, pouted/rounded. | pˠ, bˠ, m̥ˠ, mˠ, w | |
| 3 | FV_S | Lower lip touches upper teeth, unrounded/lax. | fʲ, vʲ | |
| 4 | FV_B | Lower lip touches upper teeth, slightly rounded. | fˠ, vˠ | |
| 5 | TD_S | Retroflex: Tongue touches behind the alveolar ridge, lips slightly more open than TD1 and TD2. | tʲ, dʲ, l̥ʲ, lʲ, n̥ʲ, nʲ, ɾ̥ʲ, ɾʲ | |
| 6 | TD_B | Tip of tongue touches back of teeth, lips slightly opened, unrounded/lax. Tongue often visible behind teeth. | t̪ˠ, d̪ˠ, l̥ˠ, lˠ, n̥ˠ, nˠ, ɾ̥ˠ, ɾˠ | |
| 7 | S | Teeth almost together, lips rounded. Tongue not seen. | sˠ, zˠ | The zˠ sound only exists in loan words. Its most similar existing viseme is /sˠ/. |
| 8 | KG_S | Back of tongue touches the palate. Lips lax/unrounded, slightly more open than indices 5-6. | c, ɟ, ç, j, ɲ̊, ɲ | |
| 9 | KG_B | Back of tongue touches the velum. Lips rounded, slightly more open than indices 5-6. | k, ɡ, x, ɣ, ŋ̊, ŋ | |
| 10 | SH | Lips rounded, jaw slightly down. Lips pursed. | ʃ, zʲ | The zʲ sound only exists in loan words. Its most similar existing viseme is /ʃ/. |
| 11 | NSL | Lips lax, tongue touching teeth. | n̻̊ʲ, n̻ʲ | Slender laminal |
| 12 | NBL | Lips rounded, tongue touching teeth. | n̻̊ˠ, n̻ˠ | Broad laminal |
| 13 | LSL | Lips spread, front of tongue contacting teeth. | l̻̊ʲ, l̻ʲ | Slender laminal |
| 14 | LBL | Lips slightly rounded and forward, front of tongue on alveolar ridge. | l̻̊ˠ, l̻ˠ | Broad laminal |
| 15 | VFC | Closed frontal vowel. Unrounded lips. | iː, ɪ, i | The diacritic following the i means lengthened. |
| 16 | VFM | Frontal vowel, half-open. Unrounded lips. | eː, e, ɛː, ɛ | 'ː' diacritic means lengthened vowel |
| 17 | VBC | Closed back vowel. Rounded lips. | uː, u | 'ː' diacritic means lengthened vowel |
| 18 | VBM | Back vowel, half-open. Rounded lips. | oː, o, ɔː, ɔ | 'ː' diacritic means lengthened vowel |
| 19 | VFO | Frontal open vowel. Unrounded lips. | aː, a | 'ː' diacritic means lengthened vowel |
| 20 | VBCU | Back vowel, closed, unrounded lips. | ɯː | This sound does not exist in English. |
| 21 | SCHWA | Neutral, lax vowel. | ə |